“Consider the prospect of creating a personalized AI agent tailored to meticulously analyze your fund's specific data. This tool, fueled by your analyses, personal notes, conversations, expert insights, and project feedback, could discern potential signs of success or failure right from the initial assessment. As a vital member of your team, this AI, through automated monitoring scenarios, wouldn't just monitor your funded startups but also scrutinize those not selected, uncovering previously overlooked opportunities and proposing investment strategies grounded in market trend analyses.” - the out skills.
People: K-Healing, korean healing fiction, grows even more. Violence in Jules Verne’s. Art and 3D scans. Resignation agencies.
Space: Models of space colonization. Microcraters on the moon.
Life: Autism biology. Do fungi recognize shapes. Whale skeleton leaking oil. New ways of making chocolate? Models of life (a good short story ;)).
Business: Neom using 1/5th of global steel, 5% of global logistics? Gravity free, 3D printing. Good ol’ RSS readers. More plastic recycling. Italy web tax. Journalist watchdog funds his own successor.
AI: Medical imagery experts. Inference on a 3-cent microcontroler. The expanding role of CPOs. Regulation and a standards efforts. Keeping an eye on the AI Action summit next in FR.
Using AI to tailor prices isn’t ethical, says FTC. AI companionship neither. Virtual employees in MSoft, along with Zoom avatars. AI and justice - worrying. MSPaint.. now AI-powered?
Fintech fires 2000 jobs because of AI.
Navigating the Absurd
As the sun dipped below the skyline of East Palo Alto, Officer Wendy Venegas stared at the screen of her police report generator, a sleek piece of software called Draft One. It was supposed to make her life easier, but the chatbot had developed a penchant for poetic embellishment. "The suspect fled like a startled deer," it suggested, which, while certainly evocative, didn’t exactly belong in a police report.
Wendy sighed. "I just need the facts, not a nature documentary."
In her mind, she was already preparing her rebuttal to the AI’s artistic inclinations, but her thoughts drifted to the larger implications of AI in policing, especially with the ongoing FTC investigation into surveillance pricing. It had become a common refrain: technology was supposed to be the great equalizer, yet it often felt like the universe had conspired to ensure that the rich got richer and the rest of them lost track of their bank accounts. "Dynamic pricing," she muttered, "like a VIP club where everyone’s left outside in the rain."
Meanwhile, a different kind of revolution was brewing in the art world down the street. The local library had begun hosting events to promote Korean literature, which was gaining popularity among the youth. They called it "healing fiction," a genre that promised emotional catharsis through the soothing balm of beautifully translated prose. "If only we could heal our budget deficits with a few well-placed metaphors," Wendy mused, wondering if a story about a beleaguered police officer trying to manage an increasingly chaotic world might just sell itself.
As she wrote, she thought about the rising trend of proxy resignations in Japan. Young workers, overwhelmed by toxic environments, were hiring services to do their dirty work—essentially outsourcing their own self-respect. "If only I could hire someone to resign from this paperwork," she chuckled to herself.
Just then, her phone chimed with a notification—a Zoom meeting reminder. The new AI avatars were all the rage, promising to attend meetings on your behalf. "Next, they’ll be voting for us too," she joked to an empty room, thinking of how her avatar might be more articulate than her actual self.
In the midst of her musings, Wendy realized the absurdity of it all; the world was spinning on a carousel of contradictions. Fungi, with their uncanny decision-making skills, were more reliable than some human counterparts, and chocolate was now being made from the entire cocoa fruit, turning the confectionery industry into a model of sustainability. "I should just start a chocolate factory," she sighed, thinking of a simpler life where her biggest problem would be choosing between dark and milk chocolate.
But then came the call for backup, reminding her that the world outside her digital musings was still very real. As she stepped into the night, she felt a twinge of irony. This was her life, a blend of absurdities and innovations, each one more surreal than the last. "Welcome to the future," she said to herself, and immediately wondered if she should have hired an AI to handle that, too.